That’s why the Rams win games like Saturday night’s against the Charlotte 49ers (a 68-61 victory), when they’re doubled up on the boards (36 to 18) and allow their opponent to make more than half of its shots from the field (51.1 percent).

“They try to make the game faster, make you rush into things you don’t want to do, get you out of your offensive set,” Charlotte point guard Pierria Henry said. “And by the time you get to your offensive set, the shot clock is fighting against you.”

Despite giving up 17 offensive rebounds at Charlotte, the Rams had five more shot attempts, largely because they forced 17 turnovers. By VCU standards, that’s on the lower end of the scale—the Rams’ havoc defense was producing a nation-best 20.4 heading into Saturday night’s game—but it was highly effective.

Henry, Denzel Ingram and Terrence Williams, the 49ers’ three primary ballhandlers, combined for 12 of those 17 turnovers. The credit, as always, goes primarily to the defensive perimeter of senior Darius Theus, sophomore Briante Weber and junior Rob Brandenberg.

When they sense fear, they’re like pythons. A python wraps its coils around its prey and waits for the unfortunate animal to breathe in, then it squeezes. The process repeats again and again until it’s impossible for the prey to draw any more oxygen, and then it’s over.

Theus, Weber and Brandenberg operate with a similar defensive principle. They guard tightly every possession, and if the ballhandler steps away from the basket, it’s on.

“We’ve got a drill called ‘No Escape’ and we work on that every day,” Theus said. “The moment he pulls back, if you take up his space, he has nowhere to go but back again. Don’t let him go forward, and then we get that good trap.”

When these traps are sprung, either by a backcourt mate or a big man sprinting out from the paint after seven or eight seconds of intense pressure, it’s pretty much over.

They are suffocating. And they are smart, too.

“The biggest line that we have to straddle—and it’s a fine line—is the line between havoc and discipline,” VCU coach Shaka Smart said. “It’s not that those things are opposites. I mean, I think you can have havoc with discipline, but when the game is getting chaotic and you’re taking a lot of chances on defense, you can tend to lose a level of discipline at times.”

Weber leads the nation in steal percentage -- coming up with steals on 8.2 percent of opponents’ possessions while he’s on the court -- and Theus is third nationally at 6.1 percent. In terms of raw numbers, Weber has 72 steals (3.0 per game) and Theus has 61 (2.7 per game). Entering Saturday’s action, they ranked second and ninth in the country.

Weber owns the single-game school record for steals (10 against Florida Gulf Coast on Nov. 9, and he’s closing in on the school record for steals in a season, currently held by Rolando Lamb, who had 88 in the 1984-85 season. Weber is second on the list with his 77 last season.

“He’s very long for his height,” says senior Troy Daniels, VCU’s record-setting 3-point shooter. “He knows how to steal the ball. That’s a gift, to me. Just like a gift to me is shooting, his gift is stealing the ball and pressuring the ball. And he’s very good at it.”

He’s averaging 1.6 steals in their five losses and 3.4 in their 19 wins. He’s averaging 3.7 at home and 2.2 away from the Siegel Center. And he’s still learning.

“A huge emphasis with him is, steals are great, and that’s one form of stopping the other team, but let’s not go for steals at the detriment of defensive stops,” Smart said. “That’s always the goal, to stop the other team from scoring. That’s a process that he’s in the middle of, he’s far from complete. All of our guys need to get better there.”

And they are getting better. Drills like “No Escape” make sure the emphasis stays in the forefront every practice. And it’s why opponents are left with thoughts like this, from Charlotte’s Williams: “They made us do things that we didn’t want to do, and we ended up taking shots we didn’t want to take.”